Tiffin Columbian volleyball runs past Ashland in four sets

ASHLAND − The Ashland High School volleyball team may have learned something about themselves Monday night in Arrow Arena as Tiffin Columbian came in and downed the Lady A's in four matches, 3-1.

After winning the first two matches 25-8 and 25-12, Ashland battled through a third match that saw 11 ties before the Lady A's rallied for a 30-28 win. Columbian then won the fourth and decisive match 25-10 to earn the non-conference triumph.

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Still, it was the true grit and determination Ashland showed in the third match that coach Jenise Vaughn was proud of.

"I loved seeing our girls show that fight, I loved seeing them have a little resilience after struggling in set one and set two," Vaughn offered. "It's starting to be a pattern with us, these top teams we fight really hard in set three, so I was glad to see us come up with a win in set three."

Ashland is now 8-5 overall with the loss and Columbian has improved to 9-3 overall.

The Lady Tornadoes are well-coached, communicate on the court, and are led by a host of talented players like 6-foot-2 junior middle and outside hitter Kaela Jenkins, the daughter of former Ohio State basketball player Shun Jenkins, who has committed to play at Wake Forest. Others include senior middle and outside hitter Ella Kerschner and sophomore outside hitter Alexa Beaston.

"She is fun to watch, she's powerful, she's smart, she's quick for her size," Columbian coach Hope Boes lauded of Jenkins. "Ella and Alexa are very consistent, very level-headed, smart volleyball players, and strong."

Boes also said the Lady Tornadoes work well together as a team with lots of good leadership.

"They communicate, and we work on that all of the time," she said. "It's a daily thing to communicate with each other and work well together, and they all do a good job."

Ashland did have some fine performances from many players, including junior outside hitter Kate Aber (11 kills, 10 digs), senior middle hitter Emma Paddags (8 kills), senior middle and outside hitter Vivian Walter (14 digs, 6 kills), senior defensive specialist Allison Ward (16 digs), and upstart freshman Arienne Vaughn (28 assists, 10 digs, 2 aces).

"It was hard to score on them and hard to get any momentum going on our side for the first two sets," coach Vaughn noted. "And when you play against a blocker like that (Jenkins), it sometimes affects your offense, it affects how aggressive you are at the net. And I wish we would have stayed more aggressive, just focusing on our side and not worrying about the big blockers on the other side.

"We knew Columbian was a very talented team, we knew about Jenkins in the middle, but it was like we couldn't get anything going in set one," Vaughn added. "We never got any service runs, which is usually our strength. We've got a lot of youth on our team so we're really working on that next-ball mentality that sometimes they get a lucky hit or sometimes you don't get a call that goes your way. We need to make sure that's one point and it doesn't roll into three or four points."

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Tiffin Columbian pulls away from Ashland in volleyball win